


an attribute of exile

by Acacius



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, a more bittersweet/serious look into one of my fave eps from nandor's pov, basically this is just me revealing some nandor headcanons & wwdits!vampire lore all in one, so cue the angst melodrama & a touch of fluff lol, yes nandor is a himbo. but he is also ancient and full of sadness :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25886083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acacius/pseuds/Acacius
Summary: Set during 1x06 (Baron’s Night Out). Happiness, Nandor decided, could be found in the simplest of places, and there was no place he’d rather be at that moment than sitting in the lounge beside Laszlo, listening to Nadja and the Baron sing karaoke songs off-key.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless, Laszlo Cravensworth/Nadja, Laszlo Cravensworth/Nandor the Relentless
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	an attribute of exile

_“A city that cannot be known by its smell is unreliable. Exiles have a shared smell: the smell of longing for something else; a smell that remembers another smell. A painting, nostalgic that guides you, like a worn tourist map, to the smell of the original place. A smell is a memory and a setting sun. Sunset, here, is beauty rebuking the stranger. But to love the sunset is not, as they say, one of the attributes of exile.”_

_-Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence_

.

.

Most vampires were sentimental creatures by nature. Even the most banal of objects could become priceless relics if you squinted and tilted your head at just the right angle. If Nandor wasn’t so incredibly inebriated by drug blood, he might think to hypnotize one of those hipster-y humans with brightly colored hair that still carried around Polaroid cameras to take a picture of the four of them for posterity.

Sitting slumped on the sofa with Laszlo, watching as Nadja and the Baron belted out karaoke songs in English, Greek, and Latin, Nandor realized he was, for the first time in much too long, genuinely happy. He tried not to think about how fleeting the feeling was, how it almost always lingered in his periphery just out of reach.

His thoughts returned to the relative safety of the night at hand, to how it was a shame that they didn’t have anything to commemorate their time out on the town. Perhaps he’d be able to persuade one of the documentary crew to give him a recording of the night that he could then ask Guillermo to show on his computer device. Being the second oldest vampire in the room, Nandor was well aware of how easily memories—even those you considered most precious—could slip through your hands. It didn’t matter how tightly you held on; nothing could last forever.

After seven hundred and fifty eight years, he found that his brain was much like a sprawling estate built by a madman, the interior a maze with endless corridors and rooms. Some days, certain rooms were locked and no amount of banging on the door would allow him entry. Other days, he could pass through thresholds of time with ease, his memories as clear as his reflection in the waters of the Mond River that he dove into as a child to save a stray cat that had gotten caught up in the current. He had gotten three long gashes on his hand and a bite mark on his left shoulder for his trouble, but it was still worth it in the end to see the little hellion scamper off into the reeds and back to its small litter of kittens.

The Baron reminded him of that cat, he realized, his mind centuries away even as a pop song blared from the karaoke speakers. The older vampire was vicious, unpredictable, and probably didn’t like water all that much. But he was also adamant about vampires leaving the shadows, forging lives that amounted to more than sneaking about in gutters like rats—and how could Nandor hate him for that? His method—subjugating humanity, which would have _thrilled_ Nandor at some point in his life, but certainly didn’t now—wasn’t something he agreed with, but he was sure he had time to persuade the Baron to take a less violent approach. Nothing seemed impossible to Nandor in his drug-addled haze, not even becoming friends with the Baron.

With a tired grin, Nandor fell back against the lounge sofa, suddenly unable to hold himself up. It was like a weight had settled on his chest as he stared up at the spinning disco lights, briefly catching Laszlo’s wandering gaze. The other vampire, who had been flipping casually through the binder of potential karaoke songs, now looked at Nandor from the corner of his eye, a familiar grin tugging at his lips.

Lazily, Nandor leaned in closer to Laszlo, chin almost resting on the other man’s shoulder. Like this, in the dark of the karaoke room, all of his self-imposed barriers to physical affection melted away. He was vaguely aware that the human Nandor, the warrior who had twice turned the Euphrates red with blood, would never show his emotions so plainly. But very high and much too inebriated vampire Nandor didn’t care about what conclusions could be made from how he smiled back at Laszlo, dark eyes twinkling with mirth.

“That’s the Baron I remember,” Laszlo quipped, nudging Nandor’s arm.

Nandor’s voice was gentle as he spoke, fingers trailing against Laszlo’s left hand. For a brief moment, he thought he might try and interlace their fingers, but he chickened out as soon as Laszlo looked at his face. Even inebriated, Nandor still had some boundaries that he couldn’t force himself to break despite how much he wanted the reassurance of a hand in his own, a reminder that he wasn’t completely alone.

“I’m having a really great time, but it’s almost sunup. I think we should leave soon, otherwise we’re gonna be fried.”

Before Laszlo could respond, Nadja piped up to ask her husband if he could look through the music binder for _Girl in the Village with One Small Foot._ Rather quickly, Nadja grew tired of waiting on Laszlo to find the song and began to sing a cappella.

Nandor and Laszlo had both heard the song before and jumped in to sing along, a light, fluttering feeling spreading in Nandor’s chest as he tried and failed to match Nadja’s pitch. He realized with some surprise that what he was feeling was actually his own heartbeat. With all the blood he had drunk within the night, his heart, an otherwise silent relic to his life as a human, had begun to beat a slow, sluggish rhythm. It was nowhere near a human’s heart rate, that much Nandor was certain of, but it did bring a brief, fleeting melancholy, a reminder of what he had unknowingly traded for immortality—not that he had much of a choice, back then.

Once the Baron commands them to head home, his ancient voice still ringing in Nandor’s ears, he takes one last, fleeting look at the empty karaoke room. Soon, the place would be swept up, the bloodstains would be scrubbed clean, the binder of songs would be put away, and there would be nothing to even suggest that the four vampires had been there at all.

That was the thing about being a vampire: you had to get used to impermanence. You existed outside the frantic bubble of time, a spectator to the rise and fall of empires both big and small, a haunting made corporeal with an insatiable desire for blood. You could touch the world, but it could not touch you in any meaningful way. You were immutable, a creeping shadow that hungered for life, and nothing could change that. Not love, not friendship, not even hatred.

All you would ever have is your hunger. You could lose your land, your family, all your worldly possessions, but hunger was the one thing you got to keep. It was a constant presence, an intrusive thought, a fraying tightrope that you balanced on for all eternity—or for as long as you could manage.

Even now, as happy and drunk on blood as he was, Nandor already felt the stirrings of hunger at the edge of his lips. He smothered the feeling down with a chaste kiss to Nadja’s forehead as they all walked clumsily home, arm-in-arm, their laughter echoing in the cold, empty dark. 

* * *

“Guillermo!” Nandor called again, tendrils of sleep tugging at his heavy eyelids.

He knew he was forgetting something important, but his only coherent thought at the moment was that he wanted to get undressed and ready for coffin. He brushed off clumps of ash from his shoulders, frowning at the black stains upon his fingers.

What had happened again? Did he go to a barbecue? The annoying human neighbor, Shaun, who Laszlo had a bizarre soft spot for underneath all his heavy-handed posturing, had invited them on numerous occasions to feast upon the dead carcasses of poultry cooked upon an open flame. It was actually a kind gesture, Nandor had to admit.

He remembered cooking his own food over a roaring fire: wild hares, pheasants, and even fish, though seafood had never been his favorite as a human. He had almost always burned his food too, never wanting to risk an upset stomach when the very next morning he would be leading hundreds of soldiers through treacherous, winding mountains on the back of his beloved horse, John. The taste in his mouth now, Nandor thought, sticking his tongue out with a grimace, was uncomfortably familiar to the taste of something burnt to cinders.

Guillermo eventually came running into the room, nearly tripping over the threshold in his haste, and had to steady himself against the armoire in the corner. Nandor sauntered over with a laugh, barely containing his glee at seeing his familiar.

“There you are, Guillermo! I’ve been calling for you for… for…” he paused, confused. How long had it been, actually? He remembered calling for Guillermo in the attic, mistaking the Stair Master for him, but everything else was still hazy at best. “…Awhile now! Did you get locked in the bathroom again?”

“Master, I-I…” Guillermo trailed, sweat beading at his brow. He looked rather wild, Nandor thought, like he had been chased through the house. Or was perhaps anticipating such an attack. He even had foliage and dirt stuck to his clothes and hair.

Wordlessly, Nandor reached forward and plucked a leaf out of his familiar’s hair. He then decided to pat down a few errant curls that had made Guillermo look like he had just woken up with coffin-head before sweeping his hands across his shoulders for good measure, a rare softness creeping into his expression.

He had been called a mother hen before, back when he had an entire army under his command. Of course, such a comment usually resulted in a very stern warning full of finger wagging and yelling. A second similar comment from the same person, however, resulted in a much more… severe punishment. Mainly, the perpetrator would have their tongue cut out and be forced to watch as it was fed to scavenging birds.

His soldiers were right though, Nandor mused. He was far from a medic and much preferred killing to saving lives. However, he knew battlefields better than almost anyone else. He knew exactly what could go wrong, knew the thousands of ways that a person’s life could be cut short, how you could bleed out before you even knew you had been touched by a sword—or _teeth_.

As a human, he had been able to tell with a fair degree of accuracy whether an injury was mortal. He tended to fuss over the soldiers he could save, opting to personally clean and bandage the ones that were too weak or unconscious, unable to tend to their own wounds. Medicine was not as advanced as it was now, but Nandor had seen first-hand that if a soldier did not die from blood loss, they could still die from infection. Sepsis, a medical term he had picked up from Colin Robinson of all people, had killed more of his men than the cut of the sword itself. As such, no one returned to a fight without first passing a standard health check—Nandor needed warriors by his side, not liabilities.

Perhaps that was why even now, despite it being centuries since he last heard the war trumpets or the sound of hooves against barren dirt or the rain-like patter of blood falling from a sword, he could still recognize when a person needed to be taken care of. Consoled. Not that Nandor was any good at the emotional aspect of taking care of someone. Still, he tried his best—at least for Guillermo’s sake.

“There, now you look Okay-A, Guillermo!” he said cheerily, flashing two thumbs up.

“T-thank you, master,” Guillermo replied, clearly nervous for some reason. His cheeks were flushed pink and his heart was beating much too fast.

Nandor frowned. Why was Guillermo so nervous? He dropped his voice to an impish whisper. “Do not worry, I will not tell the others about your embarrassing dishevelment.”

Guillermo nodded, but remained silent, brown eyes glued to the floor.

Nandor tried again to assuage his familiar’s worries, grinning fondly, completely unaware of the blood still coating his teeth. “Were you playing outside in the leaves? That’s a very fun thing to do, I’m sure, but maybe wait until after I am asleep in my coffin, yes? ”

“Right. Of course. I’m sorry,” Guillermo said, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. His scent no longer had an undercurrent of panic that reminded Nandor faintly of the smell of burning plastic, to his relief.

“You are forgiven, Guillermo. Now come, help me get ready for my slumber.”

With Nandor swaying somewhat on his feet, Guillermo had an obviously difficult time helping the vampire undress. When it came to removing his boots, he eventually had to ask Nandor to sit in the armchair in the corner, kneeling before the vampire who was still only half-dressed for bed. One of the sleeves of his billowy linen blouse was slipping down his shoulder, revealing tan skin interspersed with crisscrossing pink scars, wounds he had received while still fragile and human.

Nandor caught Guillermo staring at one of the more prominent scars and gave a chuckle. He pointed in the general direction of the taxidermy boar head hanging on the wall—or at least attempted to. The room was spinning quite a bit. “That was from Barry. He gouged me with one of his tusks. It hurt a lot! But he was a worthy opponent; he fought harder than a lot of men I crossed swords with on the battlefield. And I liked his smile. So I had him preserved. I like to think of him as a friend.”

“Wow... I wouldn’t have guessed that you had gotten that scar from a boar,” Guillermo breathed, finally pulling off Nandor’s boots. He then rose quickly to his feet. “Okay, let’s lace up your shirt.”

“And don’t forget about my sleeping breeches, Guillermo. I want my favorite pair. The black ones.”

Guillermo nodded, pulling the requested clothing out of an antiquated trunk. Once the vampire was adequately dressed for sleep, Guillermo began to brush out Nandor’s hair.

Nandor leaned into the touch immediately as he sat upon the stool, tipping back far enough that his head was almost resting on Guillermo’s shoulder. He sighed contentedly.

“M-master, I can’t brush your hair like this,” Guillermo spluttered, face turning pink again.

“Hmm? Oh, right,” Nandor assented, moving to sit up straighter.

He only managed to stay upright for a few moments before he fell back yet again into the solid expanse of Guillermo’s chest. Nandor yawned, fangs glinting in the candlelight as he lazily tilted his face to look up at Guillermo through lidded eyes. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the familiar, sweet scent and the comforting sound of Guillermo’s heartbeat so close to his ear.

“I think I am too tired for the hair brushing today,” he admitted, voice thick with sleep. If he closed his eyes now, he was sure he would actually fall asleep against his familiar. Some distant part of his brain knew this was a bad idea, that he was indulging in desires he had painstakingly hid over the course of a decade, but currently there was nothing aside from a shaft of sunlight that would make him willingly leave Guillermo’s side.

With a squeak, Guillermo pulled away fast enough that Nandor would have fallen off the stool and onto the floor if he hadn’t thought to levitate before his inevitable tumble. Now, he was floating horizontally just above the ground, dark hair sweeping across the floorboards as he folded his arms.

“ _Guillermo,_ what was that for?”

“S-sorry! It was a reflex,” he stammered, holding out a hand for the vampire who was still floating a few inches off the floor.

“You have a reflex for dropping people?” Nandor said incredulously, swatting at Guillermo’s hand before rising to his feet without his familiar’s help. “ _Unbelievable!_ You are really a horrible familiar at times!”

When it looked like Guillermo might cry, Nandor felt a sudden ache in his chest and frowned, hand briefly settling over his own heart. _Thud, thud, thud…_ his heart’s sluggish rhythm had quickened, as if trying to match Guillermo’s heart beat for beat. But there was no way his heart could ever catch up to that of a human’s heart rate. He sneered none too kindly at his familiar, though all he really wanted was to chastise himself.

He had let himself get too close… _again_. It seemed like every few days he made a new promise to keep his distance, to treat Guillermo as the servant he was supposed to be. Not that anything ever amounted from it. There was a clear cycle to his behavior, one that he was sure even Guillermo had noticed. He would slip up, reveal a hint of what he felt for the human, and then backpedal with some intentionally pointed reminder of Guillermo’s place in the house before feeling guilty and performing some small act of kindness in repentance. Rinse and repeat for over a decade and that was precisely their dynamic—though Nandor had to admit that he had gotten rather soft over the last two years or so, doing more kind things for his familiar than any vampire worth their fangs would ever willingly do just to see a human smile.

At the sound of sniffling, Nandor wrinkled his nose and backed away until his hands rested against the lid of his coffin. “No need to be so glum, Guillermo. I said you were the worst familiar at times, not _all_ the time.”

When Guillermo didn’t respond, head still bowed, Nandor sighed, reaching a hand out blindly for his familiar. His vision still hadn’t cleared and it looked as if there were two Guillermo’s standing in front of him. Eventually, his hand made contact with the human’s shoulder and Guillermo startled briefly at the touch before leaning into it. Nandor’s thumb ghosted across the thin fabric of Guillermo’s button-up shirt, rubbing in what he meant to be soothing circles.

He could feel Guillermo’s pulse jump at his ministrations, a confused but still teary-eyed look on his face.

“Guillermo, is there something you’re not telling me? I do not believe that my joke-y talk would make you this upset.”

Silence. Then, just as Nandor thought they would end up in a stalemate, neither speaking to fill the absence of sound between them, Guillermo spoke up, voice hesitant but firm. “I… I’ve just been thinking. About things. Vampire things.”

Nandor cocked his head. “But you are a human. Why are you thinking about vampire things? Unless you are thinking about where to get more virgins—“

“Do vampires always protect their familiars?” Guillermo interrupted, surprising Nandor by his boldness. He could let the behavior slide... for now. There would be other times to chastise Guillermo, after all. 

Nandor’s lips pulled into a straight line as his fingers flexed against Guillermo’s shoulder, tightening his hold marginally. “Generally speaking… yes. Especially if you have a good familiar; it would be a pain to lose them.”

“Are there limits to how far a vampire will go to protect their familiar? I’m just… wondering, you know, after what happened at the nightclub. ”

_In other words_ , Nandor thought to himself, _Guillermo is asking how far I will go to protect him._ _Too far,_ the vampire quipped to himself, recalling the brief spike of terror followed by an icy, all-consuming rage that he had somehow managed to stifle by the time he approached Guillermo and the unknown vampire on the stairwell. It was easy enough to act in a placating manner on the surface while his inner mind imagined killing the vampire in an excruciatingly number of specific, painful ways—most involving his head-ripping gloves.

Perhaps Guillermo deserved the truth. Nandor knew this, but it didn’t make it any easier for him to say the words.

“Alright, here is the truth: back then, I did not want to start a fight on another vampire’s turf.” Nandor looked away, purposefully avoiding Guillermo’s gaze. It was the aftereffects of the drug blood, he was sure of it, that was making him bare his heart in such a way. It definitely wasn’t in an attempt to keep his familiar from crying, a sight that worryingly made him feel as if someone were pressing a stake against his chest. “It is a horrible strategy. And what if in all the commotion you had been snatched away? There were vampires covering every inch of Simon’s club… you would not have lasted five seconds if someone chose to sink their teeth into you.”

“ _Oh…”_ Guillermo breathed, cheeks blushing a lovely shade of pink.

This time, the silence between them was almost companionable. Familiar. Tension unspooled from his body with each passing second, reminding him of his most pressing need after a night on the town: quiet, blissful sleep.

“Well?” Nandor began, finally dropping his hand away from Guillermo’s shoulder. He already missed the warmth of Guillermo’s skin radiating underneath his hand and through the fabric of his shirt, but he steeled himself, giving as serious a look as he could muster given how tired he was. “Are you going to help me into my coffin anytime soon?”

With a barely contained chuckle, Guillermo nodded, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater before approaching the coffin. He held out his hand, lips curled in a small smile. “Goodnight, Master.”

Nandor shakily climbed up the wooden stepladder, needing Guillermo’s steady, warm hand more than he’d like to admit as a guide to his steps. Once settled in, Nandor let himself relax into the soft fur lining of his coffin, a pleased hum leaving his lips.

He flashed a subtle, fanged grin just as Guillermo reached to close the coffin lid, the human’s shadow draping over him briefly like a blanket. “Goodnight, Guillermo.”

He eventually fell asleep to the sound of Guillermo’s footsteps as he shuffled about the room, totally unaware of his familiar's inner turmoil as he rushed to blow out all the candles. 

* * *

When Nandor wakes the next night, it’s with the vampire equivalent of a hangover. He also wakes with an unusually sharp sense of panic, something he hadn’t felt in a long time outside of his own shortlist of vampire-specific fears (mainly the thought of encroaching sunlight).

It is only when he creeps out of his coffin unaided and the scent of charred vampire remains reaches his nose that he curses loudly, flinching at the resounding crescendo of pain in his head at the sound of his own voice.

_“Shit!”_ He pauses for a beat, grabbing at his head, then: “ _Guillermo!”_

His familiar comes running to his room and Nandor can’t quite shake the vague sense of déjà vu as he watches Guillermo nearly trip over the carpet and steady himself on the nearby armoire.

Whatever happened last night, Nandor thinks, descending the stairs in a panic, the scent of ash growing stronger with each step, at least he has Guillermo. Maybe he wouldn’t have his familiar forever, maybe he really would be left with only his hunger and the dull ache of loneliness once he eventually turned him, but for now, Guillermo was human and alive and walking by his side—which was all Nandor could ask for as a creature accustomed to loss. 

**Author's Note:**

> as i try to do w/ all of my wwdits fics, here's a fun blood/cardiovascular fact: 
> 
> so the heart is made up of myocytes (a fancy science word that literally just means muscle cells) and myocytes have their own myogenic activity. simply put, there are cells within the heart that will cause the heart to contract spontaneously without the need for neurological input. the autonomic nervous system & the peripheral nervous system (specifically CN X, the vagus nerve) only act to 'regulate' heart rate, but even if you were to cut the connection btwn the nervous system and the heart, the heart would intrinsically beat on its own. i had the unfortunate experience of seeing this irl during a physio lab (w/ a frog, not a human--i should specify that lmao), but i digress... ^^; just know that it is actually the sinoatrial (SA) node that generates the human resting heart-rate of ~60-100 beats per minute which is why it can be thought of as a 'natural pacemaker.' 
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading my nonsense as per usual & i hope y'all enjoyed this mess of a character study lol


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